Study Desk

The old agreement that brought death, written with words on stone, came with God's glory. In fact, the face of Moses was so bright with glory (a glory that was ending) that the people of Israel could not continue looking at his face.

So surely the new agreement that comes from the life-giving Spirit has even more glory.

This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin, but it had glory. So surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory.

We are so sure of this hope that we can speak very openly.

We are not like Moses, who put a covering over his face. He covered his face so that the people of Israel would not see it. The glory was disappearing, and Moses did not want them to see it end.

God, with his mercy, gave us this work to do, so we don't give up.

So we constantly experience the death of Jesus in our own bodies, but this is so that the life of Jesus can also be seen in our bodies.

We are alive, but for Jesus we are always in danger of death, so that the life of Jesus can be seen in our bodies that die.

So death is working in us, but the result is that life is working in you.

The Scriptures say, "I believed, so I spoke." Our faith is like that too. We believe, and so we speak.

All these things are for you. And so the grace of God is being given to more and more people. This will bring more and more thanks to God for his glory.

So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.

While we live in this tent, we have burdens and so we complain. I don't mean that we want to remove this tent, but we want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be covered with life.

So we always have confidence. We know that while we live in this body, we are away from the Lord.

So I say that we have confidence. And we really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord.

We know what it means to fear the Lord, so we try to help people accept the truth. God knows what we really are, and I hope that in your hearts you know us too.

The love of Christ controls us, because we know that one person died for everyone. So all have died.

He died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from death so that they would live for him.

So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It is like God is calling to people through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God.

Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could be right with God.